by Ella on March 23, 2010
Pic by Amarand Agasi
When I was about 10 my sister and I hosted a sleepover and, in a moment of uncharacteristic audaciousness, ordered a pizza to the home of a schoolmate we found mutually disagreeable. Being relatively obedient children, it was the most mischievous stunt we could think of. But, unaccustomed to such degeneracy, we made a crucial error: I wrote of our plans on a slip of paper — names, pizza toppings, everything — and my mother found it the next morning.
As the older sister, I was hauled into an interrogation chair to account for the evidence. I froze. I lied. I came up with elaborate excuses involving rehearsing a play whose plotline revolved around ordering a pizza to a fictional character’s hypothetical house. But I couldn’t sustain such nonsense for long.
My mother decided that the best way to punish a daughter who cannot stand confrontation would be to force her to telephone Pizza Hut and apologise. I could not think of a worse fate. I begged to be let off the hook. I offered to wash dishes for as many weeks as it would take to forget this whole thing ever happened. But she remained resolute. I had to make that call.
She dictated a script for me. All I had to do was read it, she said. “What are they going to do, come through the phone and kill you?” Over a decade later I still invoke that wonderful quote whenever I have to make an unpleasant call.
With shaking hands I dialled 481-1111, the centralised number for Pizza Hut’s Sydney-area delivery service. A child of about 15 answered. I looked at my script.
“Hello. My name is Ella Morton. Last night I called from this number and ordered a pizza. It was a prank, and I would like to know how much I can pay Pizza Hut.”
There was a pause. I could hear the adolescent thinking. Then, the sound of typing.
“That pizza was paid for. I guess whoever got it ate it.”
“Oh. So I don’t need to pay anything?”
“Nah.”
“Okay. Well. Thank you. Goodbye!”
I hung up. The warm feeling of relief flooded my veins. I looked at my mother. She gave me a wry smile and an approving nod.
I learned something pretty major that day: when you’ve messed up, you need to fess up and confront it, and the sooner the better. It’s terrifying and it’s uncomfortable, but the sense of peace that follows makes it all worth it. And the whole experience is rarely as bad as you imagined it would be.
Just a little something to remember for those of us who spend way too much psychological energy worrying about outcomes that probably won’t happen.
I‘ve published versions of this story online before — so don’t go accusing me of unoriginality, wiseguy — but the piece so fits with the ethos of Sprinkle of Ginger that I had to tweak it a bit and post it here.
It is a tale of dirt, anger and revenge and chronicles events that occurred in 2002, when I was living in Sydney and my family had just moved to New York.
Kitty Letter (2002)
I arrived home late and exhausted one night to find a letter in my mailbox threatening to nail my cat to a door. The alleged crime committed by my adorable Russian Blue? He defecated on my neighbour’s door mat, causing said neighbour to track faeces throughout his house.
Amid the profanity and general outrage, the letter threatened to report me for “animal neglect”, and requested I financially compensate The Neighbour to the tune of $150. It was obvious from his letter that the man relied on the Microsoft Word thesaurus to compose his provocative note of rage.
Being 18 at the time, my first reaction was to call my mother. She and The Neighbour exchanged words and emails, and an arrangement was made: as the legal guardian of Bondi the cat, I would pay $50 per week for three weeks in order to fund the cleaning of his faux-Persian rugs.
Though I was a spineless wussbag who feared confrontation, I could not help but feel a sense of injustice. With no other outlet, I picked up a pen, and, in my neatest cursive, wrote a letter to accompany the first $50 installment:
Dear Neighbour,
I understand that the urge to nail my cat to your door has been suppressed. Which is probably a good thing. I mean, can you imagine having to explain that sight to a group of dinner guests? “Don’t mind the door old chaps, I’m going for a rugged ‘disembowelled domestic animal’ motif this season.”
I will accept your accusations at face value — that my cat is responsible for your suffering, and thus, on behalf of him, I must duly compensate you. There is just one thing I am unclear on — how did the unspeakable dirt become tramped throughout your house unless you invited my cat inside? It has been my experience that cats have difficulty forcing their way through locked doors. If you stepped on the soiled doormat and subsequently sullied your own carpets, then my sympathies for the destruction this grave oversight caused you.
In any case, I sincerely apologise for the lack of respect my cat has shown you by soiling your living space so gratuitously. I would offer to beat him to death with reeds, but I fear that this would possibly garner me another “animal neglect” accusation.
If you happen to incur any further expenses, perhaps for psychological trauma counselling following the “stink, germs, time, expense and horror of cleaning the mess up”, please let me know. As soon as I finalise arrangements for financing my combined law degree, I would be happy to siphon any remaining money into your account.
I’m glad this has all been resolved. As they say in the Latin, “Sona si Latine loqueris”.
Yours faithfully,
Ella
(The Latin phrase means “Honk if you can speak Latin!”. I included it because he used some wanky Latin phrase in an email to my mother. I believe it was “live and let live”.)
I put the letter, written on Hello Kitty stationery, in his mailbox. A single $50 note was shoved in the envelope. Weeks passed. He never bothered me again.
